I have heard back from a few profs that I'll be receiving the CALI in their class, and I know that CALI puts the award on its website for anyone to see. This makes me a little uncomfortable. There are a lot of students trying hard to make good grades and I'd think some would be resentful of this. On the other hand, it may be good to have the awards up there for potential employers to verify.

Has anyone asked for the award(s) to be removed from the site? Any thoughts on whether this is helpful or harmful?

Last edited by adude on Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, I had the same thoughts about the few CALI awards that I received. If anyone else in my section had received a single CALI it wouldn't be so awkward, but when it's only you it just doesn't sit well. After a couple of nights of thinking about it I am just trying to convince myself that it is good for my section-mates. When one person dominates, it shows that law school exam grading is not arbitrary and that hard work and dedication pays off. In addition, people are comfortable when they know that there are others like us out there. It helps them sleep at night knowing that "Tom Bradys" and Albert Pujols" of the world exist and can step up when they can not. They want people to idolize, and while it is awkward for now, I'm sure eventually I will grow used to it, and even enjoy the feeling.

nyknicks wrote:Yes, I had the same thoughts about the few CALI awards that I received. If anyone else in my section had received a single CALI it wouldn't be so awkward, but when it's only you it just doesn't sit well. After a couple of nights of thinking about it I am just trying to convince myself that it is good for my section-mates. When one person dominates, it shows that law school exam grading is not arbitrary and that hard work and dedication pays off. In addition, people are comfortable when they know that there are others like us out there. It helps them sleep at night knowing that "Tom Bradys" and Albert Pujols" of the world exist and can step up when they can not. They want people to idolize, and while it is awkward for now, I'm sure eventually I will grow used to it, and even enjoy the feeling.

nyknicks wrote:Yes, I had the same thoughts about the few CALI awards that I received. If anyone else in my section had received a single CALI it wouldn't be so awkward, but when it's only you it just doesn't sit well. After a couple of nights of thinking about it I am just trying to convince myself that it is good for my section-mates. When one person dominates, it shows that law school exam grading is not arbitrary and that hard work and dedication pays off. In addition, people are comfortable when they know that there are others like us out there. It helps them sleep at night knowing that "Tom Bradys" and Albert Pujols" of the world exist and can step up when they can not. They want people to idolize, and while it is awkward for now, I'm sure eventually I will grow used to it, and even enjoy the feeling.

Please don't be flame. Attitudes like this are one of the things I'm most looking forward to in LS.

nyknicks wrote:Yes, I had the same thoughts about the few CALI awards that I received. If anyone else in my section had received a single CALI it wouldn't be so awkward, but when it's only you it just doesn't sit well. After a couple of nights of thinking about it I am just trying to convince myself that it is good for my section-mates. When one person dominates, it shows that law school exam grading is not arbitrary and that hard work and dedication pays off. In addition, people are comfortable when they know that there are others like us out there. It helps them sleep at night knowing that "Tom Bradys" and Albert Pujols" of the world exist and can step up when they can not. They want people to idolize, and while it is awkward for now, I'm sure eventually I will grow used to it, and even enjoy the feeling.

Please don't be flame. Attitudes like this are one of the things I'm most looking forward to in LS.

nyknicks wrote:Yes, I had the same thoughts about the few CALI awards that I received. If anyone else in my section had received a single CALI it wouldn't be so awkward, but when it's only you it just doesn't sit well. After a couple of nights of thinking about it I am just trying to convince myself that it is good for my section-mates. When one person dominates, it shows that law school exam grading is not arbitrary and that hard work and dedication pays off. In addition, people are comfortable when they know that there are others like us out there. It helps them sleep at night knowing that "Tom Bradys" and Albert Pujols" of the world exist and can step up when they can not. They want people to idolize, and while it is awkward for now, I'm sure eventually I will grow used to it, and even enjoy the feeling.

Please don't be flame. Attitudes like this are one of the things I'm most looking forward to in LS.

OP here. Another concern is this: I may have received a CALI in another class, in which case I'd like to know about it. But if I preemptively ask CALI.org not to post them, would they let me know if I received another? In other words, do they send you a link to the award itself, or an email that you received the award? I would prefer not to have any CALI's posted in the first place, but I don't want this to prevent me learning of the award.

adude wrote:OP here. Another concern is this: I may have received a CALI in another class, in which case I'd like to know about it. But if I preemptively ask CALI.org not to post them, would they let me know if I received another? In other words, do they send you a link to the award itself, or an email that you received the award? I would prefer not to have any CALI's posted in the first place, but I don't want this to prevent me learning of the award.

I don't think I will get a CALI award but I am excited to see them when they get posted. I'm really curious to see who gets them. I don't understand why you would want your name removed from the site to spare hurt feelings. If somebody saw your name it's because they specifically went to the site and sought the information. If they don't want to know anything about anyone else's grades they don't have to. If you got one I think you should be proud of it.

Kilpatrick wrote:I don't think I will get a CALI award but I am excited to see them when they get posted. I'm really curious to see who gets them. I don't understand why you would want your name removed from the site to spare hurt feelings. If somebody saw your name it's because they specifically went to the site and sought the information. If they don't want to know anything about anyone else's grades they don't have to. If you got one I think you should be proud of it.

I think that's the ideal situation. I hope people will be this reasonable. Still, word gets around in other ways and people overhear other's conversations. Also, curiosity and jealousy are not mutually exclusive. That's what I worry about most.

There's nothing to worry about if you're not the one being obnoxious and telling everyone about it. Everyone knows someone got the best grade in the class. If people find out it was you in ways that don't involve you saying anything to anyone, then what's the problem?

I think this might just be a thinly-veiled "look i got the highest score on an exam" thread. or not.

Yes, I had the same thoughts about the few CALI awards that I received. If anyone else in my section had received a single CALI it wouldn't be so awkward, but when it's only you it just doesn't sit well. After a couple of nights of thinking about it I am just trying to convince myself that it is good for my section-mates. When one person dominates, it shows that law school exam grading is not arbitrary and that hard work and dedication pays off. In addition, people are comfortable when they know that there are others like us out there. It helps them sleep at night knowing that "Tom Bradys" and Albert Pujols" of the world exist and can step up when they can not. They want people to idolize, and while it is awkward for now, I'm sure eventually I will grow used to it, and even enjoy the feeling.

I know that you are trolling, but the reality is that many people in Law School have this exact attitude. It's part of the reason that people hate lawyers. It's part of the reason that I hate lawyers and the "study of law." It's part of the reason that I refuse to take the bar or practice law.

And to head off any nonsense, this is coming from someone with multiple CALIs. I just recognize that law school grading is notoriously arbitrary and unfair, that I am no better than anyone else in the class, and that the "study of law" is nothing more than pretentious elitists who get together and pat themselves on the back while they pretend that law is something other than the exercise of raw power.

OP here. Another concern is this: I may have received a CALI in another class, in which case I'd like to know about it. But if I preemptively ask CALI.org not to post them, would they let me know if I received another? In other words, do they send you a link to the award itself, or an email that you received the award? I would prefer not to have any CALI's posted in the first place, but I don't want this to prevent me learning of the award.

They give you a hard-copy of the award. It is incredibly cheesy and it looks like it was printed on an inkjet, but it is still a hard-copy nonetheless.

Unlike many others here, I applaud you for removing your name preemptively.

First of all, while we love the talk of CALI Awards, I want to invite you to contact us directly with questions like this. We're a small organization and our contact information is not hard to find at http://cali.org. Might save some of the guesswork that seems to be going on. :)

Second, let's clear up some confusion about the awards...

1) While almost every US law school is a member of our nonprofit consortium, not all schools participate in the awards program. It's the school's choice, and it can opt-in to the program for free at any time. 2) Your professor alone decides who gets awards in his or her classes based on whatever criteria he or she chooses.3) We generally don't notify individuals when they win CALI awards. That's up to the school or the professor.4) Your school administers the awards list locally and provides us with those lists through a computer system. As they enter awards in our database, they have the option to opt out of the public display of awards.5) If they don't opt out of public display, the awards show show up here: --LinkRemoved-- (sorry it's still on the old version of our website). 6) If your school participates and keeps awards public, and you still don't want to be listed, we'll remove your information at your request as fast as we can. But be aware, it is a manual process. John, our executive director, (again, contact information is easy to find at http://cali.org) is the best person to ask about removal of award information. 7) We'll still print one of our super-fancy, expensively crafted awards (come on!...it's LASERjet.) and send it to your school with the rest of the awards, even if you ask us not to post it or take it down. Then your school will distribute the awards however they choose.

As you can see, your school administers and makes most of the decisions about CALI Awards. We just take the lists as they are given and create the awards, and there's a fair amount of automation in that process.

You may be able to cut this off at the pass by talking to your professor and/or your school administrators and telling them you do not want your CALI Award information made public. They may be able to take steps on their end; plus, who knows where else they post awards lists.